Indian educational institutions have lost ground in the latest edition of the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings, with IISc Bengaluru dropping out of the top 150 club. It is ranked at 152 this year as against 147 in 2015.

Nine out of 10 Indian universities, which figured among the best 700 institutions last year, have slipped several places down in terms of academic and employer reputation. IIT Madras is the only exception which improved its rank by five places to join the top 250 club.

Among other institutions, IIT Delhi was ranked at 185 as opposed to 179 last year, IIT Bombay slipped 17 positions down to 219, IIT Kanpur stood at 302 from 271 last year, IIT Kharagpur at 313 from 286 and IIT Roorkee at 399 compared to 391 in 2014. IIT Guwahati slipped even further from the 451-460 bracket last year to the 481-490 this time.

While Delhi University figured in the 501-550 band, University of Calcutta was in the 651-700 bracket. Banaras Hindu University, Panjab University, University of Mumbai and University of Pune were rated even below the top 700 institutions.

However, on the upside,IISC Bangalore is now rated as the world’s 11th best research institution, according to the citations per faculty scoring, data for which was sourced using Elsevier’s Scopus database.

Ben Sowter, head of research at the QS Intelligence Unit, attributed Indian institutions’ consistent fall in rankings to inadequate numbers of PhD-qualified researchers and international faculty ratio, which directly affect research output.

“The performance of Indian institutions in our recent regional rankings suggests that India is gaining some ground on its regional competitors. Though India is making substantial and commendable progress towards ensuring that more of its tertiary-age population has access to tertiary education, the global edition indicates that substantial challenges remain,” Sowter said in a statement.

In the overall rankings, Massachusetts Institute of Technology continued its run as the world’s best university for the fifth consecutive year. Stanford University displaced the University of Cambridge in the top three, making this the first year since the inaugural rankings of 2004 when American institutions occupy all top three positions.